Overnight Open Thread

Though to be technical the engineers depicted are really more Nerds which is an independent but overlapping category. Real engineers don't wear ties and are able to properly super-glue their glasses back together. And more likely to talk about video games, movies, and swords rather than their personal optimized tip scoring system.

A journalistic colleague I had no reason to doubt told anyone who would listen that Vice President Al Gore had tried to stick his tongue down her throat out of nowhere at a New Year’s Eve party in the mid-90s, when all she’d been expecting was a friendly peck.

Well to be fair this might just be Al's way of saying hello. And it was New Year's eve. Plus shouldn't the VP get at least a frenching pass given that he's just a BJ away from the presidency?

Prime Minister David Cameron has informed Mr. Savage that his name will remain on the banned list unless he "repudiates" currently unspecified broadcast statements that Britain "deemed a threat to public security."

Which translates to they're afraid that he might rile up the local Muslims. Say has Ann Coulter been to the UK recently?

Tonight ‘Deadliest Catch’ Loses Captain Phil
Tonight the Discovery Channels airs a two-hour episode covering the life and death of Capt. Phil Harris. And unlike a lot of other semi-scripted pseudo-reality TV shows, the best part of the 'Deadliest Catch' is that it shows real people doing a real job. And like real life sometimes death intrudes with no warning.

US Loses AAA Credit Rating
It's by a Chinese agency but since the Chinese finance most of our debt, it does matter what they think. And given that we borrow 10% of our GDP just to keep the government operating, we're probably lucky to stay at AA.

Was a $1 Trillion Afghan Mineral Motherlode Just Discovered?
Kinda not really. The mineral deposits have been known about for years and the trillion dollar figure seems to be a new guesstimate that the Afghan Mines Ministry recently came up with. Even if it's all true, given Afghanistan's remoteness, lack of infra-structure, and hostile natives, mining the deposits may not be economical for years to come if ever.

Black Boxes Clear Toyota On Sudden-Acceleration Issue
So after examining car 'black boxes' from sudden acceleration crashes, the DoT has found that in all cases the throttles were wide open and the brakes weren't applied at all which implies that the drivers were just stomping on the wrong pedal the entire time. And which fits in with Megan McArdle's article a while back showing that the demographics of the episodes was way skewed towards the elderly.

There were still some incidents that are believed to be caused by 'a sticky' accelerator or the floor mat pushing down on the pedal. But I assume that in these cases the black boxes showed that the brakes were applied.

"Single women have done such a good job at creating their lives to not need a man, so that when one comes along, they don't have any time for him," said John, 35-year-old now-married professor from Florida.

One aptly blunt New York lawyer, 30, said, "We hate hot girls bitching about how they don't have boyfriends because there are no good men and not [realizing it's] because they're high maintenance or boring."